Vietnamese Food

A Bazzilion years ago, as an innocent college co-ed, when I first moved to The Big City, I didn't know a soul. No one. I started studying at a coffee shop not far from my house and eventually befriended a bunch of the other students who studied there.

One of them, I'm not sure who, introduced me to the Vietnamese place down the street. I loved it immediately and ate there several times a week. It was cheap. As cheap as the local sandwich place, the neighborhood burrito shop, or the Chinese place down the street, but something about it felt a little more upscale then any of them. I took my girlfriend there. And my boyfriend. And one time, for some stupid reason, both of them at the same time.

I'm pretty sure I studied for every test I've ever taken there, eyes glued to a book, while shoveling rice noodles and imperial rolls into my hungry hole. Every thing was amazingly fresh and tasted so... bright and crisp. Eating there always made me feel so good because the food was so simple and healthy. Like it counteracted all the horrible things I was doing to my body.

To this day Vietnamese remains my comfort food of choice. I still eat at the old place, but because it's an hour away now, I have learned to make my favorite dishes at home.

Now, in addition to it making me feel like I'm being Oh So Healthy and good to my body, it reminds me of my squandered youth.

my 1980s mullet shame

The stages of my life can best be defined by my hair. 

First, there was Dorothy Hamill. Oh how I wanted that perfect glossy bob. My mom, always one to help, gave me a bowl cut. Same cut. Right?

For some reason, I simply could not picture Olympic gold medalist Dorothy Hamill sitting in the kitchen, holding a bowl on her head while someone cut around it. 

Truthfully, the cuts looked a bit different as well.

Just a bit. 

Then came Farah Faucet. This time my mom let me go, after much begging and pleading, to the local beauty school. But, I'm not sure a team of high paid professionals could have made my hair resemble Miss Faucetts. 

Instead, I had long, mousy brown strings that sorta feathered on one side, and pretty much, no matter what I did, looked like I slept on it, fitfully, on the other. 

This brings us to the early 80's and what can only be described as the time of the giant mullet and finally, something my hair could do with glee. 

No matter the era, there are pictures of my hair rebelling. At least up until the time of the giant mullet, I had an excuse for the atrocity atop my head. Once I was a teenager, there was only me to blame.